earticle

영어

This paper maintains that any literary tendency such as ‘modernism’ can cycle over the whole literary history, even though its original definition has long been fixed both in terms of historical and literary significance. The tendency to ‘modernism’ becomes strong during the period from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. Its major modes of expression are three things: first, ‘impressionism’ which is related to the ‘intense moment’; secondly, ‘subjectivity’, related to the mental exploration of the self; and thirdly, ‘symbolism’, related to the thematic description. Lord of the Flies created by William Golding and published in 1954, three decades after the modernist flow, embodies these modernist modes of expression. Golding relies on a impressive method to make the reader see the ‘intense moment’; he introduces into the core of this work the symbols that in the various ways recurs in the major works written by the modernist writers. Finally, central to this work is the concept of ‘salvation’ symbolized by ‘fire on the mountain’. In this context, this paper aims at finding the modernist elements in Lord of the Flies to regard this work as another successful modernist masterpiece, and to expose the recurring literary tendency such as ‘modernism’ at any possible point of literary history.